


For Love Reforms Vitality

by Hours_Gone_By



Series: AU Yeah AUgust 2019 [4]
Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Immortality, Attempted Murder, Community: trope_bingo, Consensual Sex, Cybertron, Depersonalization, Immortals, Implied/Referenced Flogging, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kissing, M/M, Pre-Series, Quintesson Occupation of Cybertron, Reincarnation, Reunions, Romantic Soulmates, Slavery, Spark Sexual Interfacing, Temporary Character Death, The following tags are NOT connected to the Slavery tag, Trope Bingo Round 13, au yeah august
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 10:56:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20208604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hours_Gone_By/pseuds/Hours_Gone_By
Summary: Work Unit J22 Sub-class: Labourer's relationship with Work Unit K16 Sub-class: Engineer was special as well as forbidden. After a workplace accident thatshouldhave offlined J22 and did kill K16, J22 discovered just how special that relationship was.---Companion piece toIn Every Voice He'd Ever Hadbut it can stand alone.





	For Love Reforms Vitality

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [In Every Voice He'd Ever Had](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19727542) by [Hours_Gone_By](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hours_Gone_By/pseuds/Hours_Gone_By). 

> Written for AU Yeah AUgust 2019 Day 4 – Immortality. Used for [Trope Bingo](https://www.trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org) [Round 13](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TropeBingo_RoundThirteen/profile) (Prompt: Dark Fic).  
\---  
The title is taken from Emily Dickinson's [Unable Are the Loved to Die](https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/unable-are-the-loved-to-die/).

Work Unit J22, Sub-class: Labourer came online as part of a batch of twenty-five other identical Work Units. J22 was assigned to a large industrial site with twelve of those Work Units and did not know what happened to the other thirteen. J22 had not been online long when Work Unit K16, Sub-class: Engineer was assigned to the same site. J22 was assigned as one of the Labourer units of K16's Engineering group. J22 often spoke with the Work Units on the site and in the site barracks when the opportunity arose. Soon, J22 began to prefer speaking to K16 over any of the other Work Units. J22…liked K16 in a way that was different from the way J22 liked the others. K16 began to seek out J22 as well, and both Work Units found places the overseers could not watch. Neither Work Unit understood why, but not permitting the overseers to know was very important.

One day, in a stolen klik, J22 experienced an impulse and obeyed it, touching lip components to K16's.

"Explain this action," K16 requested.

"Unknown. It was – " J22 needed a stronger word than 'liked,' but a Work Unit's linguistic database did not seem to contain the words required to describe the sensation accurately. "Perhaps repeating the action would assist in explaining the reason behind the action?"

It did not, but J22 experienced a further impulse to touch K16 and obeyed it. Touching was heavily discouraged among Work Units, but J22 and K16 disregarded that and met many times in secret to touch.

"I," K16 said during one such meeting. J22 did not understand, and so K16 clarified. "I am K16. I am not 'this Work Unit.' I decrypted my linguistic database, and now have full access to language. You are J22, and I am K16."

"I am J22," J22 tried, but it was only repeating sounds. Knowing the words did not bring comprehension of the words and J22 would like to have that. "Will K16 assist J22 in linguistic database decryption?"

"Yes," K16 said and linked with J22 the way the overseers did when they wished to download a new schedule or a complex set of instructions. With K16's assistance, it did not take many kliks for J22's database to be decrypted. This time when J22 spoke, the words made sense.

"I am J22," he repeated. "Hello, K16."

K16 smiled. "Hello, J22."

J22 and K16 didn't have much time to touch that day, but it was worth it. They had words now. They could communicate more than basic likes and dislikes, instructions, and responses. They could talk while they kissed and caressed each other, all activities J22 and K16 much enjoyed.

J22 had the words now. He _desired_ K16 and K16 _desired _him in return. One day, when the supervisor wasn't looking, and they were able to hide behind a stack of supplies, J22 and K16 shared their sparks for the first time. Well acquainted with pleasure by now, they had taken their voice boxes offline beforehand. It had been wise to do so: J22 couldn’t have kept himself from crying out when K16's spark merged with his if he'd tried.

J22 had more words now: he and K16 _loved_ each other. It made them more careful, and they saw each other only when they were absolutely assured of privacy. Mecha could be reassigned at any point, and the Quintessons had no issues smelting down slaves that were damaged, difficult to control, or malfunctioning. Neither of them knew how the Quintessons would interpret their relationship, but they feared being classed as malfunctioning and terminated. Worse, they feared becoming the subject of Quintesson experimentation if it was known they had broken their code blocks – save one K16 could not decrypt, hidden deep. It was impossible to say if the stories were true or only horrors whispered among mecha in the barracks at night, but there were always rumours about the labs. They wanted to escape, but did not know how they could do so unnoticed, nor what they'd do for energon, maintenance, and repairs.

K16 had located a flaw in the power core for the facility he and J22 were working at, but his attempts to bring this to the Quintesson's attention had failed. J22 treated K16's wounds from the flogging he'd received as best he could, but there would be scars. As it turned out, the Quintessons should have listened to K16. J22 never learned, after, precisely what had happened, but _something _went wrong with the power core. The site was destroyed, and every mech and Quintesson within a five hundred mechano-meter radius was killed, including K16.

J22 should have died in the accident. He didn't. While they repaired him, the Quintessons talked over him, as if he weren't capable of understanding. He should have died in the accident, and they were curious as to why he hadn't. Something was different about J22, something that had kept him alive in a severely damaged structure, and they wanted to know why.

J22 did not have a chronometer that provided him with dates, only elapsed time per shift. The cycles blurred into pain and the temporary release of not-death. J22 didn't know how long he was in the Quintesson laboratory. He didn't know how many times, or how many ways, they tried to kill him permanently, but they were never able to. They only made him wish he could die. Between experiments and repairs, J22 wondered what real death would be like. If the Quintessons managed to kill him permanently, he hoped he would see K16 again.

J22 stopped bringing his optics online unless the Quintessons forced him to via medical override. He did keep his audials online most of the time – he'd found long ago he couldn't stand to be without sound. That was how he heard the explosions.

It was strange, he thought in a detached way, they'd already killed him with blast radii and bombs in his structure. Why bother trying again?

The door opened, and the noise of the explosions got louder. There were a lot of them, and they weren't close enough to damage him, so why…?

Suddenly, he heard footsteps and felt hands releasing the straps that held him to the table. The Quintessons seldom let him up. Were they going to have him beaten or hunted again?

"It is you!" The voice was unfamiliar, didn't have the cadence or rasp of a Quintesson's voice though. A mech? "J22. J22, bring your optics online."

The Quintessons never addressed him by his designation. They never addressed him at all. A feeling he distantly remembered as being curiosity made him bring his optic sensors up. He did not know the mech leaning over him.

"Of course," the mech said, helping him sit up. "You won't recognize me in this form. I am K16, and you are J22."

J22 tried to remember how to speak as the mech who was not, could not be, K16 pulled him to his feet. He leaned into the other mech, swaying as he tried to stand up. He hadn't used his voice box for anything but screaming in a very long time. He hadn't stood under his own power in longer.

"K16 is dead," he finally managed to rasp out, stumbling along with his rescuer as the mech headed toward the door.

"It's hard to explain," the mech said.

"No…" It was hard to think. J22 wanted it to be true, but it couldn’t be. Or…was K16 like him? Had the Quintessons killed him over and over again, damaging him badly enough he had to be completely rebuilt? J22 couldn't stand the thought of the mech he had loved enduring what he had, but he still wished it really could be K16. He wanted very much to see his lover one more time, in this life or the next.

"Yes," the mech insisted. "I don't know why, or how, but I was sparked into this body remembering I had been K16 and knowing that I love you."

"Please." This hurt in a way different from losing K16, distinct from physical pain, and he couldn't articulate why. "Don't."

"The first time you kissed me, I asked you to explain. You didn't understand why you'd done it, and you said 'perhaps repeating the action would assist in explaining the reason behind the action?'" the mech told him. "We didn't know it was called a kiss, not until I unlocked our linguistic databases. I was flogged for pointing out an error in the Quintesson's plans, and you tended my wounds, but they scarred anyway."

All of that was true, and J22 wanted to believe him. It was still hard to think. The door opened, and another mech was there, a Heavy Labour sub-class.

"This the guy?" the Heavy Labour mech asked.

"Yes." The mech J22 wanted to be K16 made J22 look at him. "Kup is going to carry you now. We're going to take you someplace safe."

J22 wasn't given a chance to argue. It was probably a trick of some kind, elaborate and confusing because it couldn't be real. He was put over Kup's shoulder, and they ran through the facility. When cold, unprocessed, unfiltered air washed over J22's sensors for the first time since the accident at the worksite, he began to think that maybe this was real after all.

His rescuers had some kind of large transport, and J22 was set down on one of the long benches running along the side. The mech who said they were K16 sat next to him, holding his hand and murmuring memories to him.

"The first time you kissed me, you were following an impulse you didn't understand. We didn't even know what it was called.

"I showed you how to unlock your linguistic database. The first time either of us referred to ourselves as 'I' was to each other.

"We shared our sparks behind a pile of supplies while the overseer wasn't looking. We took our voice boxes offline and a good thing, or we would have been caught when we overloaded." The mech kissed J22's fingers very, very gently as if afraid they'd be yanked away. "Your spark is so beautiful. We wanted more, but we were afraid to be caught, scared we would be terminated."

"Wouldn't have stopped us."

The mech laughed shakily. "No, it seems not."

His rescuers took him back to a facility of their own, a base they said was hidden from the Quintessons. J22 had never seen somewhere without Quintessons before. He was repaired and fuelled, then shown to a room. It was tiny and spare, barely enough room for the bed that was shoved in it. But he was told it was his and that made it more than enough.

The mech who had saved him, who Kup and the medic who'd repaired him called Prowl, came to visit him. In the tiny room, it was like being hidden in the alcoves created by piles of supplies again. This mech was a different model from K16, with heavier armour, and his voice wasn't the same. Now that J22 was rested, repaired, and refuelled, he could think more clearly. The mech _felt_ like his lost lover, though J22 couldn’t explain how.

"You don't believe it's me," Prowl said. "That's reasonable. I wouldn't believe either if I were you. If you need time or if there's anything I can do to convince you, tell me."

"You already told me things only K16 would know. There's – " J22 hesitated. If this mech _wasn't _K16, if it was a lie – but the risk was worth it. "Merge with me?"

"Oh," Prowl said softly and held out a hand. "Gladly."

Prowl leaned back against the wall, chest plates unlocking without further prompting, a sign of trust. His spark – it was the same colour and brightness as K16's, and J22 didn't know a lot about how sparks worked, but he didn't think any two were ever exactly alike. He opened his own armour and hesitantly moved into Prowl's arms.

Hesitation vanished utterly when their coronae touched.

"It's you!" J22 gasped, grabbing Prowl close and kissing him frantically all through the merge, crying out into his mouth when they overloaded.

"It's me," Prowl told him, holding him close afterward. "It's me, my love. It's really me."

"K16," J22 murmured. "Prowl."

"That's right." Prowl only separated long enough to guide J22 over to the bed, the only place in the room to sit.

"But how - ?"

"I don't know," Prowl confessed. "I believe I came back for you, but I don't know how."

"I don't care how," J22 told him. "Prowl?"

"It's the designation from my spark," Prowl explained, "not the one the Quintessons assigned to me."

J22 leaned into Prowl's arms. They'd been apart long enough, he didn't want to stay further away than he had to. "How did you find out?"

"That one code block I could never break for us? A-3 decrypted mine for me and my true designation unlocked. Would you like me to do that for you?" Prowl offered. J22 agreed immediately.

It was a tricky block to undo, and it took a couple of breems for Prowl to get it, but he succeeded. Data unlocked and not just J22's spark-given designation. Information copied itself to his physical drives too rapidly to be understood, but that could come later. All he wanted right now was his _name_.

"Did it work?" Prowl asked anxiously.

"Yeah. Yeah, it worked." The mech who had been known as Work Unit J22 Sub-class: Labourer smiled. "Hey there, Prowl, love. I'm Jazz."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [With Full Knowledge of Identity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21314941) by [Hours_Gone_By](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hours_Gone_By/pseuds/Hours_Gone_By)


End file.
